What a wonderful time to remember! I think Peter must have been thinking of it when he said to Cornelius, We "did eat and drink with Him after He rose from the dead." Perhaps he also thought of another time when the Lord asked for some food, "and they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. And He took it, and did eat before them"--to show them, while they yet believed not for joy and wondered, that it was indeed Himself who was standing among them, risen from the dead.
You will find that there are a good many places in the Bible where fish are spoken of. I hope you will have in your list one which was given me by Sharley only; although I had expected that everybody would have found it.
It is mentioned in the gospel by Matthew, alone. We are not told what sort of fish it was in whose mouth Peter found the "stater," a piece of money worth about three shillings, which was exactly enough to give, as the Lord told him, to those who had come to ask for money to meet some expenses belonging to the temple. Every Jew paid a fixed sum, and this piece of money in the fish"s mouth was just twice that sum. How beautiful that the One who was G.o.d, and had power over the fish of the sea, to send them into Peter"s net, or to make even a fish bring to Him the coin which was wanted, should put Himself beside Peter, and say, "Lest we should offend them, go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money: that take, and give unto them for Me and thee"! Ah, but we know that the Lord Jesus Christ was "meek and lowly in heart" and He loved to put His disciples with Himself, as children of G.o.d His Father!
A writer who lived at the time when our "King James"s" Bible was translated, speaking of the sea as "the great pond of the world," says, "We know not whether to wonder at the element itself, or the guests which it contains."
As we have been learning a little of the ways of the inhabitants of the ocean of air, as well as those that people the world of water, let me close this chapter by quoting an American poet"s beautiful verses:--
"TO A WATER FOWL.
"Whither, midst falling dew While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far through their rosy depths dost thou pursue Thy solitary way?
"Vainly the fowler"s eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along.
"Seek"st thou the plashy brink Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, Or where the rocking billows rise and sink On the chafed ocean side?
"There is a Power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast-- The desert and illimitable air-- Lone wandering, but not lost.
"All day thy wings have fanned At that far height the cold, thin atmosphere; Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, Though the dark night is near.
"And soon that toil shall end; Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend Soon o"er thy sheltered nest.
"Thou"rt gone; the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form; yet on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart.
"He who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone, Will lead my steps aright."
W. C. BRYANT.
THE FIFTH DAY.
FLYING FOWL.
"_Gavest Thou the goodly wings unto the peac.o.c.ks? or wings and feathers unto the ostrich?_"
"_Doth the hawk fly by Thy wisdom, and stretch her wings toward the south?_"
"_Doth the eagle mount up at Thy command, and make her nest on high?_"--JOB x.x.xix. 13, 26, 27.
"_The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land._"--SONG OF SOLOMON ii. 12.
It was on the FIFTH DAY of Creation that the silence was broken by the voice of birds. We are so accustomed to the various cries of animals, the buzzing of insects, and above all to the chirping and twittering and singing of birds, that we can hardly imagine what a voiceless world would be like.
I have heard that far away in New Zealand, travellers who try to make their way through the great tangle of trees and creepers which is called the "Bush," speak of the silence and loneliness of the dense forests as dreadful, and they particularly mention that there is no voice of bird to be heard there. Very different is a place I know, where, although the trees in which they perch are by the roadside, and noisy carts and carriages are coming and going all day long, yet the sparrows overhead keep up such a constant chatter and flutter that once as I pa.s.sed that way a countryman looked up at the trees and smiled, and said to me, "Plenty of company up there!"
When I told the children this they were much amused, and I am sure they thought it would be very dull never to hear the crowing of a c.o.c.k or the "quack, quack" of a duck--to say nothing of the soft cooing of doves in the wood, and the sweet, rich notes of the thrushes and blackbirds.
A Frenchman, who has written a very large book all about birds, says that if we were not so accustomed to them we should think a bird flying through the air the most wonderful thing we had ever seen--and I think he is right; but before we speak of these wonderful and beautiful creatures, let us read once more the verses in Genesis which tell us of their birthday, beginning with, "And G.o.d said," and ending with, "And the evening and the morning were the fifth day."
We have been speaking of the living creatures which the waters brought forth, and now we must think a little of the "winged fowl," which were made to people the "expansion," and are sometimes called the "fish of the air,"
as the fishes are called the "birds of the ocean."
Of all the happy living things I think none _seem_ so full of joy as the birds. Their very flight has such buoyancy and gladness in it, and their songs seem always to be telling of happiness. Did you ever watch the sea-gulls flashing and darting about, and then floating quietly above your head, or the swallows in their rapid flight, wheeling round and round, and think how beautiful a thing it is just to see them on the wing, fluttering, soaring, floating in that ocean of air which is their home?
[Ill.u.s.tration: A "WINGED FOWL."]
Birds are marked off from all other vertebrate animals by the possession of feathers. How wonderful is the wing of a bird; spread wide when it is flying, and folded up like a fan when it is resting, perched upon the branch of a tree, swaying to and fro in the sunshine. But how sad it is to see such a wild, free creature as a lark, or even a thrush or a linnet, pent up in a narrow cage, where there is no room to stretch those wings so strong and light, no swinging branch to rest upon; but all the little prisoner can do is to hop from one perch to another, and beat its wings against the "wiry grate" which shuts it in so hopelessly. I suppose we don"t think so much of captive birds as of other captives, because a bird in a cage is such a common sight, and when we hear it sing so sweetly it seems as if it could not be _un_happy; but when we say "as happy as a bird," I doubt if it is of birds in cages we are thinking after all.
The cage may be of gilded wires, or of willow twigs; but both are alike prison bars which keep the birdie back from the liberty to which it was born. At least this was what an English sailor felt when he met a man carrying a cage full of birds. He had been a prisoner himself, away in France, and had many a time longed to be free; and now when he saw the birds in their gilded prison, he was not happy until he had made a bargain and got them, cage and all, to do what he liked with. What was the astonishment of the man from whom he had bought them, when he saw the sailor open the cage door and let them out, one by one, until all the little prisoners were free!
As you have watched the birds in their flight, I daresay you have wondered how they can keep themselves up in the air. Even the little wren has some weight; much more the crows which make their nests in the topmost branches of the trees. We say "as light as a feather"; yet the downiest feather has some weight, and will find its way to the ground if not kept up by wind or breath.
It is true that the "feathered fowl," as all kinds of birds are called in the Bible, are very much heavier than the air in which they float and swim, using their wings for oars, just as the fish use their fins. But do you remember that little balloon inside the fish, which enables it to rise through the water? A bird is almost a live balloon; as it flies, it breathes air into every part of its body; this air becomes heated, and is kept warm by the feathers; and as hot air becomes light, the bird is so much lighter than the air which surrounds it, that it can easily rise higher and higher, until, like the skylark, its little quivering body seems almost lost in the far blue sky, and its "waterfall of song" alone shows where it is.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE WHITE SEA-GULL, THE BOLD SEA-GULL, A JOYFUL BIRD IS HE."]
The bones of a bird are very strong, but they are also very light; if you look at the bones of a chicken, you will see that some of them are hollow; when the bird was alive, those hollow places were all filled with air. Take a dead bird and look at the quills at the roots of the feathers; and now watch that swallow as it darts so rapidly hither and thither. The bird is able to fill each tiny quill with air, so that its body becomes like a balloon, and it rises high above the roofs of the houses; then, like the fish, when it wishes to sink, it can breathe out all the air again, and so constantly change its weight, and fly, now high, now low, faster than any train can rush or ship sail.
There is a wonderful bird which sailors have seen a thousand miles from land. It is called the Frigate-bird, and has never been known to rest on the sea; it lives upon sea-creatures, but makes its nest on sh.o.r.e. Each of its wings, if stretched out as when the bird is flying, measures more than the height of a man; yet even such an enormous bird as this does not sink down by its own weight, but flies mile after mile upon its strong wings, every feather of which unites strength and lightness, never resting till its airy voyage is over, and it finds its nest. It is said that when storms sweep over the sea, this "ocean eagle" mounts upward until it has reached the calm which lies above the storm, and so sails upon its untroubled way.
The feathers of birds are to them what its scales are to the fish, and hair and wool to other animals--a protection. They are not only light and strong, but warm, and by their means, as a bird soars into colder regions of air, it is protected from the cold: while for aquatic birds there is a special provision--by pressing with their beaks an oil-gland near the tail they can waterproof their feathers! Now look again at your dead bird; you will see that the wings and tail are formed of quills, while the surface of the body is covered with short feathers--even the ear being protected by a little tuft--and all the s.p.a.ces between are filled with the softest, warmest down. Could any creature be more beautifully equipped for its journey through the fields of air?
Then this soft, warm, light dress is renewed once or twice a year, generally so gradually that the change is imperceptible--but you may have seen fowls and ducks straggling about the farmyard with half their feathers gone--on the principle of being off with the old coat before they are on with the new.
The eyes of both fishes and birds have an extra lid formed of very thin skin, which can be moved quickly over the surface of the eye, serving to cleanse it and protect it.
There are three thousand distinct kinds of birds, but it would be impossible to learn about so many, they have been divided into five groups--birds of Prey, Perching birds, Scratching birds, Wading birds, and Swimming birds.
I must tell you that Chrissie and Sharley and May had learnt something about these groups from a book of which they are very fond; it is called _The First Year of Scientific Knowledge_, and there are pictures in it of the different birds, beasts, and fishes which are mentioned.
Now, let us think of some of the birds in the first group. Birds of Prey are those which hunt for their food, and eat the flesh of other birds, or of small animals, such as rats, and mice, or of snakes. All these birds--vultures, hawks, owls--have sharp hooked beaks, and long claws, also very sharp; they fly quickly, and soon overtake their prey, whether they hunt by day or by night.
The two birds of prey most often mentioned in the Bible are the Raven and the Eagle. You remember how, when the terrible flood, which G.o.d sent upon the earth because of the violence and wickedness of men, was over, and the Ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat, Noah opened the window of the Ark, and sent forth a raven. This bird of prey could find food for itself, as it "went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth,"
and it never came back to Noah; unlike the gentle dove who found no rest for the sole of her foot, but twice returned to her refuge, the second time carrying in her bill the fresh green "olive-leaf plucked off," which showed Noah that the waters were indeed gone. How wonderfully G.o.d, who feeds the young ravens which cry to Him, used those birds of prey to bring to Elijah "bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening,"
all the time that they were commanded to feed the prophet in his lonely hiding-place by the brook Cherith. The Raven is the patriarch among birds; it lives to be a hundred years old--beyond the age of man!
The Eagle, the king of birds, is a large and beautiful creature with very strong wings, and has its home in rocky places, difficult to reach. Like all birds who live upon prey which they catch alive, it is bold and fierce.
There is a verse which speaks of it as "hasting to the prey." Eagles seize rabbits, hares, lambs, and young deer, and have even been known to attack a pony. They often carry off ducks and wild birds to their rocky eyrie, as food for their young ones. The Sea-eagle lives upon fish which swim near the surface of the waves; it sees them afar off with its keen eyes, and darts down upon them.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE OWL WILL BUILD BESIDE A BARN, OR IN A HOLLOW TREE."]
Most likely you remember the story of the Highland mother, whose baby was carried away by a great eagle, and how she climbed the steep rocks until she reached its nest, and rescued her child. Her strong mother-love took away all fear of the dreadful height which even a young sailor feared to climb, and of the wild birds who flapped their great wings at her, and then fled screaming away; but I need not say more of this Scotch story, which you may have so often heard, so I will tell you of what happened once in Switzerland to a little girl about five years old.
She was playing near her mountain home, when a great eagle saw her, darted down, and was just catching her curly little head in its strong talons, when a man with a gun, not far off, fired. He had been watching the eagle, but did not see the child, or he would have been afraid to fire, lest he should kill her. When he came to pick up the dead bird he found the little girl beside it. She had been saved by the shot which killed the fierce eagle; but I have heard that when she had grown to be a woman the scars of deep wounds made by its talons upon her head could still be seen. No doubt she often heard the story of how G.o.d had saved her from a double danger, and by-and-by she felt that she must ask Him to make her His servant all her life long, G.o.d heard her prayer, and allowed her to go as a missionary to a far-off land.